Feed Your Mind Well

Close your eyes and make up your mind you’re going to stay with the breath. Watch it all the way in, all the way out. And try to keep the mind there. Once it’s made up, keep it made up. Maintain that intention, because intentions are food for the mind, and you want to feed it off of good intentions: the intention to get the mind still, to be with the breath, to breathe comfortably so that it’s good to stay with the breath. That’s good food for the mind.

We go through the day with all kinds of intentions, good or bad. It’s like eating good and bad food. You get some nourishment, but then there’s also the food that makes you sick. There’s the food of greed, which is like greasy food; the food of anger, which is like hot, spicy food; and there’s the food of delusion, but you don’t know what it is.

We feed off of these things. It’s bad for the system, bad for the mind. The mind gets weak. So it goes looking for things outside to feed off of. That’s even lighter food, with nothing substantial to it at all—sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations. All this is like snack food. The mind goes around really hungry all the time, so no wonder it starts doing things it shouldn’t be doing. It looks for pleasure, looks for happiness in things that promise a little bit of pleasure right away. But you don’t look at the long term. And you end up suffering for it.

So. Be careful to feed the mind with good food. Maintain the intention to keep the Buddha and the Dhamma and the Sangha in mind. We live in a world where there has been a Buddha. Sometimes we forget that. He’s shown that through our efforts we can put an end to suffering.

So feed off of good efforts. Anything unskillful comes up in the mind, you try to get rid of it and you try to give rise to skillful qualities instead. That effort is what strengthens you. When you have that good food inside, then when sights, sounds, smells, tastes, or tactile sensations come, you don’t gobble them down. You’re very discerning; you’re very discriminating—what you take in, what you don’t take in. That way, you learn how to look after the mind, feed the mind well. It gets strong because that’s where the strength has to come from. It has to come from within. So we give it good food from within—the food of mindfulness, the food of alertness, and the food of ardency in particular—because that’s what enables us to choose our food, to make sure that we’re not gobbling down garbage.

So. Feed the mind well. Feed it with good intentions. Make sure you don’t go sneaking off and snacking off of bad intentions. That way, the mind stays strong because we need a strong mind living in this world. All kinds of wrong views are floating around. People showing us bad ways to behave—yet they get famous for it.

Some people think, “If that’s how you get famous, that’s what I’m going to do.” But fame is worth nothing. What’s worthwhile is the good that you do.

So look inside because that’s where goodness comes from. If you get good examples from other people, take them as good examples. And then use them as a guide to how you should behave. Otherwise, keep your focus inside, because that’s where your true strength is going to be found.